


All Work and No Play

by Andraste



Category: Blood Ties
Genre: F/M, M/M, Multi, Yuletide, challenge:Yuletide 2008, recipient:Darkrose
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2008-12-25
Updated: 2008-12-25
Packaged: 2017-10-09 20:25:26
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,213
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/91235
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Andraste/pseuds/Andraste
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Henry, Vicki and Mike keep busy.</p>
            </blockquote>





	All Work and No Play

After five hundred years, Henry Fitzroy has learned to let go of things. People, places and careers come and go when you're immortal. After he settles in Vancouver, he decides that it's time for a new job. He'll be an eccentric writer instead of an eccentric artist for a while, until people forget about the graphic novel work of Henry Fitzroy in a few decades.

Yet, despite the fact that it's no longer his entirely metaphorical bread and butter, he finds that he can't stop drawing. The lines run out of his hand unbidden, sketches on napkins and notepads while he's thinking of something else entirely. Here a glimpse of the city skyline, there an impression of a lady he knew at his father's court in mortal life. Perhaps inevitably, she turns up in his work. She comes in pieces at first, a piercing eye or a strong jaw. Once he finds himself drawing the marks on her arms, and has to scribble them out and throw them away. As the weeks go by, Henry finds himself giving in. He tries to recreate her on the page, an attempt to commit every line to paper before the memory begins to soften at the edges.

He draws other things from his life in Toronto - the CN Tower, the crowded city streets, Corinne decked out in her best leather and eye-liner. To his considerable surprise, he finds himself drawing Celluci, too. He's an interesting study - the strong hands, the frown lines around his mouth. One night he draws the two of them together, Celluci and Vicki, just watching each other in that way they had. He tells himself that he did them both a favour in withdrawing from the field. Without Henry around, they're bound to have worked something out between them.

The drawing ends up the same way as all the others - he screws it up and throws it away. He doesn't need any mementos of that phase of his unlife.

***

Maybe there's a supernatural news service, and nobody told her about it. Everyone else seems to know, though, because after Henry leaves it seems like the forces of weird redouble their assault on the town. Mummies. Werewolves. Crazy Japanese demons with bowls of water on their heads. All of them want to come after Vicki Nelson, private investigator. Somehow, she and Corine manage to survive the freakshow unaided. Vicki is proud of that, and she tries not to worry that Henry was right when he said she would lose herself in the darkness. The insanity keeps her busy enough that she doesn't have time to think about him much, or Mike either, and she puts them away in the back of her mind.

It's during the quiet times that she has trouble. She doesn't want to go running, because she might see Mike and she doesn't know what she'd say. She doesn't want to give in to the temptation to look for Henry. On one of the many nights when she can't sleep, she's out walking. Dangerous, maybe, for a woman who's vision gets worse every week, but after fighting off Asteroth muggers just don't seem scary any more. She freezes when she turns a corner and sees them in the puddle of light under a street lamp, a dark figure holding up a limp body.

It could just be that one of them has had one too many and the other is helping, but Vicki has learned to suspect mundane explanations. The figure straightens up, and just for a second she thinks that it's Henry. A step closer and the illusion dissolves - this man is way too tall, and dark haired. Nobody Vicki knows.

He lets go of his midnight snack - stepping closer Vicki sees now that it's a woman - and props her against the lamp post. "Ah, Ms. Nelson," he says, in a voice with the distinctly European accent Henry seemed to have shed long before he met her. "I don't believe we've been introduced."

"Then how come you know who I am?" Vicki said. That supernatural news service in action.

"Henry told me all about you. I'm here at his invitation, you know, since he vacated this territory."

"I thought vampires couldn't be around other vampires," Vicki says, wondering if she should edge away. "How is it you know Henry?"

"Oh, we meet up now and then, on neutral ground. He thought it would be best if someone he knew found their way here now that he's left."

It does make sense. Henry wouldn't want Christina or some other unfriendly bloodsucker moving in. "OK," she says, "let's assume you're telling the truth. Why would Henry tell you all about me and send you here without a warning?"

"I think you know the answer to that better than I do," the man says with a rueful smile. "You needn't worry about me, in any case. I promise not to cause any trouble that would make work for you - just dropped by to introduce myself. I suggest that we keep out of one another's way from now on."

Vicki nods tightly, and the next time she blinks, the vampire is gone. She doesn't try to find out who he is, and tries not to be troubled by the thought of a stranger sucking on people's necks all over town. She has other problems to worry about.

***

It doesn't take long for Mike Celluci to find our where Fitzroy went. Since it turns out that these days vampires don't own huge castles or sleep in coffins, they need apartments. That leaves a trail even when you vamp everyone involved - removalists remember guys who pay extra to get everything done at night. Turns out Fitzroy hasn't even bothered to leave the country, and maybe that should worry Mike. He's probably just waiting around this side of the border for Vicki to change her mind.

It takes much longer for him to decide what he should do with the information. He's flavour of the month at the station after his reinstatement, and he has a lot more free time now that he's not chasing demons during his rare off hours. He goes running, eats bad Chinese food alone, and avoids Vicki. So far she's been surprisingly restrained in coming after him. Corine isn't so restrained, though, and he hears from her that Vicki isn't doing so well with the monsters since Henry left town. If he wanted to keep her from getting killed or going over to the dark side, Fitzroy had a funny way of doing it.

He tells himself that Corine won't guilt him into going back to helping Vicki, and what would it help if he did? He's had enough of creatures of the night throwing him around like a rag doll to last a lifetime. Vicki needs help, all right, but not from him.

Eventually, he finds himself on a plan to Vancouver, and then outside Fitzroy's new apartment. He doesn't knock; is about to turn around and go all the way back to Toronto and give this up as a bad idea, when the door swings open.

"Detective Celluci? To what do I owe the pleasure?"

"I thought maybe we should talk."

The vampire stands aside and lets him in.


End file.
